APOPKA, Fla. – Part of a major road in Orange County connecting to State Road 436 has been shut down due to flooding from Hurricane Milton.
Part of Piedmont Wekiwa Road next to the Piedmont Plaza shopping center has been closed off. Flood waters still remain in the road.
Orange County Commissioner Christine Moore said she has never seen the flooding this bad in this part of Apopka.
“I was not here for Hurricane Donna, but in my lifetime here — I’ve lived here 30 years — it’s the worst I’ve ever seen it,” Moore said.
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Moore said essentially the water has nowhere to go and most of it is coming from Border Lake.
Moore took our News 6 crew to several spots on Sunday to show us how the flooding has impacted different areas.
First, Moore took showed us several townhomes in Wekiwa Village Lane that were close to flooding.
Moore said had they not left Piedmont Wekiwa Road flooded, it’s possible people living on Wekiwa Village Lane could have lost their homes.
“We have a pond for our road, but then that almost breached, and then it came back over here into this low area and thankfully they reached out and I believe it was the city of Apopka that then plugged up those inlets and left our road flooded longer so we could save these townhomes,” Moore said.
Next, we went and visited Jack Berrell, who lives on Page Lake. Berrell’s backyard and pool deck are completely flooded with water. Ducks were also floating by in his backyard when we first went back there.
Berrell also told us the flooding has killed most of his plants, has prevented him from planting any new sod and that he’s now worried about his brand new fence rotting due to standing water.
Then, Moore took our crew to Border Lake, which she said is causing most of the issues.
“It’s not a deep lake, it’s just for some reason there’s a lot of storage that is needed here and there’s a lot of drainage from all around that’s causing most of our problems in this section of Apopka,” Moore said.
According to Moore, flooding in this area has been a problem for awhile, but the solutions are complex and expensive.
“This shopping center is actually getting overflow from Border Lake into their parking lot, which is making the situation worse,” Moore said. “We’re in between four jurisdictions; Orange County, Seminole County, State of Florida because State Road 436 is their road, and Piedmont Wekiwa is the county’s road, and the shopping center is in the jurisdiction of this city.”
Moore said she plans to have more earnest conversations about long-term solutions.
We also asked Moore when she anticipates Piedmont Wekiwa Road could reopen. She said it depends on when the water clears out and whether or not the road was damaged by the water
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